july 1 🇨🇦
Happy Canada Day!
First things first: I love my country. I love living here. I was lucky that my parents settled here in the early 1970s instead of the United States, England, or other places their siblings, relatives, and friends ended up. I like who I am and a lot of the best parts of me radiate with an innate Canadianness. I didn't grow up here, they wouldn't, and that would suck.
That said, this country has problems. It is a settler-colonial state, after all. Evil, immoral, and vicious things were done —— by people, on purpose —— to build ("build") Canada and we need to come to terms with that shit politically, spiritually, and reconciliatorily (I know that's not a word but it should be) because that evil, immoral viciousness became systemic and that stuff echoes forever and ever unless you do something about it. And we didn't. We just got used to the noise.
The echoes of settler-colonialism is one leaf on one branch of one tree in one forest. It is the main issue, and the substrate of most if not all of the other ones, but you know that already. The gist is that this place ain't perfect. Canada is often held up by Canadians and non-Canadians as some shining example of both greatness and goodness. It's not. Not really. It's a good country, whatever that means, but it's just as stupid, violent, corrupt, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and corporate as a lot of other countries. But when you exist next to the United States, you look good by comparison.
But do you? It's not hard to look tall when you're standing next to a short person. Also, being taller than a short person is not an accomplishment for reasons including but not limited to that you didn't actually do anything to get that tall. It just happened. It was your fate to be that tall. And, like, considering all of that, is it not deeply, deeply weird and dumb to feel superior than someone else based on things about yourself that you had no control over?
(That's why I think racism is incredibly stupid by the way.)
Somewhere along the line we started accepting that just because the problems here weren't as bad as they were in the States, it was okay to ignore them.
"Yeah, sure, we have a problem with [issue] in Canada, but it's nowhere near as bad as it is in the States." Obviously. That doesn't mean you don't try to fix it.
As soon as Canadians started to believe that "hey, at least things aren't as bad as they are in the States" was the same thing as "things are great here," we lost the plot. And then we started believing our own PR. And now we are here.
I'm not gonna go all Aaron Sorkin on you and say some shit like, "Canada isn't as great as people think —— but it could be!" because that kind of rousing, melodramatic thing only works within the paradigm of America. Still, the thought persists. We can do better and be better. We can do more and be more.
Canada is a good country, whatever that means, but if we want to be great we have to constantly work to get better.
I love this place. I'm glad I live here. This is my home. And the way I show that love is by trying to make it a little bit better every day. Sometimes that's showing someone grace even if I'm upset. Sometimes that's canvassing for a candidate. Holding open a door. Minding your manners. Minding your business. Spending money in your community. And so on.
One day my body will be buried in this earth. And over hundreds and thousands of years I will decompose, and become one with the earth itself. And I will push flowers into existence from the great beyond.
🇨🇦 gonna winter
🇨🇦 go hockey
🇨🇦 touch maple syrup
🇨🇦 grass poutine
🇨🇦 now healthcare
Be good to yourself.
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